By Mae Burke
The agreement of the Executive to create a single Education Board to replace the existing five run-down Education and Library Boards is to be welcomed. Many years before ESA was even considered, many of us were saying that five educational and library boards should be reduced to one.
After eight years of uncertainty our hard-working teachers and school leaders may, at last, see light at the end of the tunnel in terms of how education is to be administered. Their faith in the Minister to deliver has been tarnished when teachers have struggled to deliver the curriculum with diminishing resources and yet witnessed £16 million being spent on attempting to set up the failed ESA.
Now, the time has come to see the removal of duplication, a reduction in bureaucracy and the transfer of money to the classroom. If we are to aim for a world-class education system the resources must focus on front-line services, from pre-school right up to the end of compulsory education.
The proposal to bring the legislation though the Assembly by accelerated passage is well and good, and we might assume that the new single board will be a mirror image of the five boards, including employer responsibility. A number of issues require clarification. A controlled sector body is to be set up and funded, the voluntary grammar schools and integrated schools are outside the plan and with no time for consultation with teachers, and no scrutiny by the Education Committee can we trust the Minister to deliver an outcome which will satisfy the key stakeholders in the controlled sector. The education sector needs clarity on these important matters.
Mae Burke
NI Conservatives' Education Spokesperson